The invention relates to a drive for doors, in particular garage doors, in which are arranged in each case laterally at the moving parts of the door and which are guided in stationary running rails, and having a drive unit consisting at least of a motor and a driving gear.
Power driven doors are widespread. A frequent application is a power driven garage door. Such doors are frequently designed as sectional doors consisting of a plurality of slats arranged horizontally on top of one another, with the respective slats being guided via door runners in running rails located at the right and left hand sides. The running rails installed vertically at the wall side change into a horizontal position parallel to the building ceiling via a curved bend. The door runners run through the vertical rails, through the rail bend, up to the horizontal end position from the closed to the open position of the door. The upper door runners of the upper end slat are frequently guided in a separate rail which is arranged directly above the horizontal rail. This rail does not move into the vertical region via a bend, but extends in roughly a straight line with at best only a little inclination up to the lintel. The upper slat can in this way be tightly flipped at the side frame and at the lintel. The drives for the said doors usually consist of a carriage which can be moved to and fro in a drive rail and which is coupled to the upper slat of the sectional door via a door catch or a doorbar. The drive consists of at least one motor and one driving gear via which the chain or driving belt moving the carriage to and fro in the drive rail is driven.
In addition to the above-described sectional door, other door leaf designs, such as one-piece swinging doors are also opened or closed via the carriages moving to and from in the drive rail.
The above drives have the disadvantage that the drive rails have to be arranged centrally in the building ceiling, for example the garage ceiling, and that a corresponding movement free space has to be kept free in the region of the building ceiling for the door catch which can be moved along the drive rail.
It is the object of the invention to provide a drive for doors which, on the one hand, is simply constructed and, on the other hand, can be arranged in a space saving manner.
This object is solved in accordance with the invention by means of a drive for doors in accordance with the invention. The drive of the invention is a rope drive in concept. Here, two counter-rotating drive shafts are provided on a drive unit consisting of at least one motor and one driving gear. A rope with two free ends is respectively wound on each rope pulley. The rope ends cooperate with the door runners arranged to the side at the doors for the opening or closing of the door such that the rotational movement of the rope pulleys is converted into a translation of the door runners. The rope ends can also cooperate with the door edges instead of with the door runners for the opening or closing of the door such that the rotational movement of the rope pulleys is transmitted to the door edges. As a result, all embodiments in the following, which are designed with respect to the door runners, can also be transmitted to embodiment versions in which the rope ends engage at the door edges.
In accordance with the invention, the drive unit can be arranged directly on the door leaf in the event of a swinging door leaf or on a slat in the event of a section door consisting of slats. Alternatively, if this is made necessary, for example, by the space relationships, the drive unit can be arranged in a fixed position, for example at the garage ceiling. In this case, the ropes are guided via a corresponding deflection, for example deflector pulleys, and connected to the door runners such that these can be set into a translatory movement along the running rails by a driving of the rope pulleys in order to open or close the door leaf.
In accordance with an advantageous aspect of the invention, the free ends of each rope can be respectively fixed at fixed points at sides opposite one another in the longitudinal extension of the running rails, with the rope ends being respectively guided between the rope pulley and the fixed point via rope deflections cooperating with the door runners. The rope deflections connected to the door runners can be separable and thus can be installed without dismantling the door runners.
The rope pulleys can advantageously have a longitudinal borehole through which the rope is guided before the ends are wound on the rope pulleys. When the rope pulleys are rotated, one end is shortened thereby and wound onto the rope pulley to the extent in which the other end is extended, i.e. wound off the rope pulley.
Rope grooves can advantageously be provided on the rope pulleys for the better guiding of the ropes, with different directions of pitch being realised for the rope pulleys located next to one another.
The driving gear of the drive unit is realised in a particularly advantageous manner by a worm gear, with a centrally arranged worm meshing with gears fixedly arranged at the rope pulleys in each case. The power driven worm is here arranged centrally between the two gears.